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camps in Hong Kong; Kyoda Shigeru, the captain of the "Lisbon Maru" which was sunk off the China Coast by an Allied submarine whilst carrying British prisoners from Hong Kong to Japan in October, 1942. Amongst prisoners still awaiting trial at the end of the year were Colonel Kanazawa, successor to Noma; Generals Shoji and Tanaka, each of whom commanded a Japanese infantry regiment in the assault on the island of Hong Kong in December, 1941; Admiral Sakonju, who was accused of ordering 69 passengers of the British motor vessel "Behar", sunk in the Indian Ocean, to be butcher- ed on the deck of a Japanese cruiser; and Colonel Kogi, the public prosecutor at the "bloody trials of 1943", as a result of which about 40 local residents of Hong Kong lost their lives.
POLICE.
Duties of the Police.
The scope of police work in Hong Kong is varied and the Police Force is recruited from various sources. The traffic problem in the urban areas is similar to that in any busy modern city and to it is added the control of some 60,000 street hawkers. The detection and prevention of crime is compli- cated by the proximity of the border, over which all persons of Chinese race are permitted to pass freely to and from Chinese territory. The
The policing of the Colony's territorial waters is carried out by a fleet of launches manned by about 250 men who compose the contingent known as the Water Police; the long and deeply indented coastline with its many fishing villages accessible more easily by sea than by land has to be patrolled and protected from piracy. The New Terri- tories have few roads (there are no roads on the islands) and the rugged inhospitable nature of the terrain is a perpetual temptation to the more primitive forms of banditry.
Composition of the Pre-war Police Force.
Before the war against Japan the Police Force consisted of just over three thousand men of all ranks. Of these the majority of the rank and file were Cantonese (i.e. Chinese belonging to Hong Kong or coming from the adjacent province of Kwangtung); the Shantung contingent, which had been formed because of the superior physique of the men of North China, consisted of rather less than 300 men recruited in the Wei Hai Wei area of Shantung Province, and the Indian con- tingent, recruited from various districts of the Punjab, was over 800 strong. The inspectorate consisted of about 70 Europeans and 45 Chinese and the whole force was directed by 16 British Superintendents and Assistant Superintendents working under a Commissioner and a Deputy Commissioner. There were also some 200 European sergeants.
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